Gitmo: A carnival of confusion

When President Barack Obama took office, one of his first acts was an Executive Order declaring that the notorious U.S. prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would be closed within a year.

This is now one Executive Order the Obama administration wants even ardent supporters to forget. For Guantánamo is thriving, even in these times of Pentagon belt-tightening. While whole weapons systems face extermination, Guantánamo’s chief jailer recently approved construction of a $744,000 soccer field for the detainees long warehoused there. “Investment in that field,” the departing prison commander, Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, recently told a congressional panel, “was worth the money.”

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Though I applaud any policy that helps Guantánamo detainees cope with their legal limbo, Obama’s stated policy is better. What’s the logic behind improving a prison that, according to the president, should already be shuttered?

But after my years defending Gitmo detainees, I accept such cross-policies as the standard, not the exception. Consider the case of Kuwait, among our most reliable allies in the still-troubled Middle East.

Kuwait is, and has been, a stable, reliable and friendly face to Washington in a volatile region where anti-U.S. hostility can reach fevered pitch. The tiny emirate has welcomed, without hesitation, one of America’s largest overseas military bases. Yet on Guantánamo, all Kuwait sees from Washington is the back of its hand.

Two Kuwaiti nationals remain incarcerated there without charge or trial. Instead of mounting a wide-ranging discussion over the men’s guilt or innocence, the Kuwaitis have instead proposed a solution that fully comports with Obama’s executive order. They have built, at their expense and to exacting U.S. standards, a Kuwait prison able to securely hold these two men, to face whatever legal future may be in store. This construction was done with Washington’s knowledge and approval. And why not? If Gitmo is to be closed, and this prison can decrease the population at Guantánamo by two, then this is a policy step in the right direction.

Or so it would seem. Instead, however, this prison, built two years ago, sits empty. Official Washington has gone silent on the issue — even refusing to meet with a Kuwaiti government delegation to negotiate potential terms of repatriation.

Meanwhile, as Washington brushes off its strong ally, it has:

• Opened negotiations with a known terrorist organization, the Taliban, to release members of its group from Guantánamo;

• Said it is considering repatriation of non-Afghan prisoners, including alleged Taliban fighters, now held in the prison at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan;

• Transferred from Afghanistan to Kuwait (on his way to the U.S.) the soldier accused of murdering 16 Afghan civilians in cold blood.

If multiple Taliban fighters can be released from Guantánamo and restored to the wobbly government in Kabul, what is holding up the repatriation of these two Kuwaiti detainees? Washington has recently reached out to the Taliban, the Sudanese, the Yemenis and others. Yet Washington refuses to extend that courtesy to one of its best friends in the region — one that has already demonstrated moderation and flexibility on the Guantánamo issue.

Sadly, this seems to be the nature of Guantánamo with regard to logic, legality and consistency. Presidents ignore their own commands, allies are snubbed over sworn enemies and the world’s most dangerous detainees — “the worst of the worst,” as the Bush administration called them — are held incommunicado and indefinitely.

Except when they’re not. Under the Bush administration, 520 men were released from Guantánamo.

David Cynamon is the lead counsel for the two remaining Kuwait Gitmo detainees.